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I am Perry Peterson, a retired auditor and tax accountant. My wife Valeta and I live along the front range of the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains.

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May 11, 2012

A report at the first link below outlines Obama’s seven states of grief over gay marriage.

The seven states he may lose over his support for gay marriage are:

North Carolina
Florida
Colorado
Nevada
Iowa
Ohio
Missouri

This could be a death blow to the Obama campaign in November.

If there’s been one constant over the course of President Barack Obama’s evolution on gay marriage, it’s this: The White House’s keen awareness of the radioactive politics of the issue.

Has the Obama administration lost sight of the fact that only 4% of the American adult population identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender? (see third link below)

The commonly held belief that 10% of Americans were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is from a passage in a 1948 Kinsey book.

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A word about the Kinsey studies of 65 years ago (see fourth link below).

The life and work of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, the Indiana University entomologist turned pioneering sexologist, has provoked accounts and interpretations as divergent, and as bitterly contested, as John Kerry’s Vietnam service in the last election.

To some, Kinsey was a fearless academic pioneer who defied conventional social taboos and helped end an era of rampant ignorance, misinformation, and fear about sex.

To others, he was a depraved propagandist in a bow tie who draped a cloak of academic respectability over lies, sin, and perversion. Some claim that he and his researchers may even have carried out sexual experimentation upon children; others insist that Kinsey’s data was gathered solely from interviews.

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Vice President Joe Biden forced President Obama’s hand on gay marriage. As the video below shows, Obama wanted to wait until the Democratic National Convention to “softly" announce his support for gay marriage.

But, as the Obama says in the video that Biden got “a little over his skis” and blurted out Obama’s support for gay marriage now, the administration will just have to live with it.

No one knew that Biden would be that useful - for the opposition, that is.

Russians are reeling today from a plane crash that seems likely to stall, or even thwart, a revival of its aviation industry, which has been plagued by high-profile disasters in recent years, including one that killed the Polish president and his entire entourage and another that wiped out an entire Russian hockey team.

The Sukhoi SuperJet 100 is shown above

This time it was not an aging Soviet-era plane that crashed, but a Sukhoi SuperJet 100, Russia's newest commercial aircraft upon which the hopes of its aviation industry are riding.

With the SuperJet, Sukhoi believes it did everything right, including cooperating with many key foreign firms in the plane's design, construction (about 70 percent of its components are foreign-made) and marketing.

The “real” unemployment rate – a broader, more inclusive measure of the country’s jobless picture than the one usually used – remained unchanged at 14.5 percent in April, as the economy created a paltry 115,000 jobs.

Known formally as the U-6 unemployment rate, this measure includes those formally counted as unemployed, those known to be marginally attached to the workforce, and those who are working part-time because they cannot find full-time work.

Search and rescue teams have found the wreckage of a Russian-made passenger plane on a mountain after it disappeared during a demonstration flight in western Indonesia. The fate of the 48 people on board is not known.

It was the first flight of the Sukhoi Superjet-100, Russia's first new passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago.

The plane left Halim Perdanakusuma airport in Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon for what was supposed to be the second demonstration flight of the day. Potential buyers and journalists were on board.

The Superjet developed by the civil aircraft division of Sukhoi with the co-operation of western partners was considered the country's chance to regain a foothold in the international passenger plane market.

A hacker group calling itself the Russian Anonymous claimed responsibility for an attack that temporarily shut down the Russian president's official website Wednesday.

A representative of the Kremlin's internet service confirmed the attack and said that other government sites had experienced attacks as well.

On Saturday, the eve of the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin, the Russian branch of Anonymous posted a video message threatening to hack government sites, expressing support for the political opposition and stating that they would help protesters break "false government sites."

In March, hackers from the group previously attacked the sites of two regional branches of the United Russia party.

May 09, 2012

A report in the Washington Post says the number of black and Hispanic registered voters has fallen sharply since 2008, posing a serious challenge to the Obama campaign in an election that could turn on the participation of minority voters.

In the 2008 election, robust turnout among black and Latino voters is credited with putting Obama over the top in key swing states, including Virginia and New Mexico.

Voter rolls typically shrink in non-presidential election years and registrations among whites fell at roughly the same rate, but this is the first time in nearly four decades that the number of registered Hispanics has dropped significantly.

For blacks, whose registration numbers are down 7 percent nationwide, and Hispanics, the large decrease is attributed to the ailing economy, which forced many Americans to move in search of work or because of other financial upheaval.

Lower voter registration may also be a sign of low enthusiasm for Obama among his biggest support groups.

Republican successes in 2010 was largely because Obama didn’t fulfill his 2008 promises.

Reportedly a huge number of Mexican illegal aliens have returned to Mexico which could be another reason for the drop in Hispanic registered voters.

Last night the Nuggets showed exactly how they have been winning ball games all season.

Using their balanced attacks and multiple weapons, the Nuggets were able to rely on a variety of players at different points in Game 5 to force a Game 6 in Denver on Thursday night.

While the Lakers do have Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum, their lack of depth has been exposed by Denver in their two losses, and it'll be something the Nuggets will look to take advantage of at home on Thursday night.

The photo above shows the Nuggets undersized rookie Kenneth Faried. Known as The Manimal, Faried has done an admirable job against much bigger players.